Monthly Archives: February 2015

With all due apology to George R. R. Martin and GoT, spring is on the way. It may already be here, looking at our ten day forecast, with daytime temps bouncing around between the mid-50s and low 80s. Yep, Florida is a weird place during this transition time. The fact that we’ve already see a swarm this early in the season is also a sign, of sorts – it means the queens in the hives have still been laying more or less at the same rate as they always have. In the winter, they generally slow down or stop, so as not to have a ton of bees in the hive that need to be fed and kept warm during the cold. Since Mother Nature is a bit wacky this year, and the winter has been mild, the bees are going full bore. Nothing wrong with that, except chasing down a swarm and trying to stop other hives from swarming.

When the state apiary inspector was here, I noted the two colonies I thought had gone queenless were looking a bit cramped. Checking on them again, it was clear the queen was doing her thing, as the frames in the brood box were full of bees, brood, pollen, and honey – in other words, a very healthy hive. There were also bees bearding on the landing board and front of the hive. In the heat of summer they will do this to relieve the heat within the hive. On milder days, it can be a sign there simply is no room left for expansion. Given that it was also time to check the gear to determine what supplies needed to be ordered, I decided to go ahead and expand both the one looking overcrowded and the one next to it, that was also going strong.

Storing hive bodies, supers, and frames is a necessity. Storing them properly is an even bigger necessity, to ensure critters don’t move in to them and take over, and the ensure wax moths don’t take up residence and destroy the woodenware and any comb that might be on any frames.

Wax moth damage

That’s done by stacking them soundly with no entrances available, and using paradichlorobenzene in the stack. What’s that, you say? It’s a kin to traditional mothballs, and smells like them. But regular mothballs you use in your closet are napthalene, and bee folks say use paradichlorobenzenne instead – so that’s what we do. I had put down a couple of sheets of newspaper, sprinkled the crystals on, then stacked the hive bodies on top of them, closed off with an overturned top cover. That would take care of any wax moths, keep rats/mice from getting in, and also keep Florida wood roaches out. It worked out fairly well, although next time I suspect using a bit more of the crystallized stuff would be better, as it kind of just melts away as time goes by.

Dead wax moth and feces

It worked out pretty well, as you can see from the dead moth on top of that frame (and the poop, but no larvae present). There were some frames I pulled out that had dark comb, as it had been used for brood once and then packed with pollen as the brood hatched. A couple of those had the remnants of wax moth damage, as wax moths lay in dark comb. Those went into a box set out near the shed where I was working. The bees immediately found it and notified a couple thousand of their closest friends to come help gather it and clean.

Cleanup crew

There was a bit of fighting going on between bees from different hives as they went about gathering from the frames, but in general, they were well behaved, and completely unconcerned with me – a good thing, as I was not wearing any protective gear.

Eventually, all the gear had been unstacked, examined, cleaned when necessary, or given over to the bees to clear. That left me with an inventory list of what was available, about to be put into use for the two lively colonies, and what needed to be discarded.

Sorting in progress

Once this chore was done, it was time to have a look in the hives. That will be a separate post. Stay tuned!

Here in Florida, everyone who keeps bees is supposed to register with The Man. Not everyone does, of course, sometimes because they just don’t know they’re supposed to, and sometimes because they’re some anti-government whackadoodle who doesn’t think it’s any of the government’s beeswax. They should, however: one of the jobs of the apiary inspector is to look for instances of American foulbrood, which is a very nasty business. If foulbrood is found in a hive, the hive has to be destroyed – by burning. That’s how bad it is. I asked bee man how often he sees it, and he says just once or twice a year. Remarkable: consider that this guy and another spend literally almost all their time driving around doing inspections, in beeyards with one hive or a thousands. Finding foulbrood that rarely out of that many hives says that the bees are doing well and that the beekeepers are, too.

I had thought two hives had gone queenless, as they were not ramping up from the splits I had made previously, and I hadn’t found good brood patterns in them. I’ve also not really gone into the hives except to pop the cover and listen for pissed-off bees in about a month-ish, except for one hive from which I made the newest split (that I am not sure actually hatched a queen that mated; there is definitely no brood in there). BUT! Upon inspection, both of the hives I thought might not make it have brood in them. Score! This means they are well on their way to earning their keep here at the ranch.

As some people know, we had a swarm earlier this week – that originated from the hive from which I had made a split trying to forestall that swarming – and the swarm landed in one of the very tall pine trees, about 50 feet off the ground. That was not a swarm that I could safely attempt to retrieve, so I wished them well and just kept checking them every day. I also put out the swarm lure in a nearby tree, to try to coax them into it as a suitable landing place. One day as I was heading out to replace a couple of feeders, a clump of bees fell off the swarm. When I checked later, they had formed a smaller ball on the end of the same branch the original ball was on – but again, in a place it would not be safe to try to capture them.

Initial swarm

Today, while waiting for bee man, I went out to replace some feeders and check on the swarm. As I was heading into the bee yard, I looked up, and finally, after five days, no bees way up in the tree. I figured the scouts had finally found a suitable space and everyone had taken off. This was not the case. As I shifted my gaze downward, what did I spy but the swarm, reformed about five feet off the ground in one of the hardwood trees nearby. An excellent prospect for capture.

Hello, ladies

We have attempted swarm captures before here at the ranch, with no success. Between then and now, though, I’ve done a lot more research, and picked up some pointers on how to get them in the box without them immediately flying right back up to where they were. With those tips in mind, I pulled out four frames we were storing from the last honey extraction and put them into an empty hive body box. Directly under the swarm, I laid down a couple of white sheets, then put the hive box (with bottom board) on those. The next step is the one that is terrifying to some people: using a hive tool, or brush, or just your hand to run along the tree limb, breaking the ball’s hold on the branch, causing them to fall into the box in a giant clump. This also results in a bunch of disturbed bees flying around. When they’re swarming, they are not really aggressive most of the time, because they’re all full of honey. But, if the swarm has been out of the hive for a few days, some of the bees may no longer be so full of honey, and may think your head is a terrific place to target with their asses, where their stinger resides. Luckily, I was completely suited up, and was not stung at all. Some of the bees, disturbed into flying, flew right back to the branch, so it took a couple of tries to get enough bees in the box for everyone to recognize that was a viable home.

With a bunch of bees in the box, I put on the inner cover (which has a slot in it) and then the outer cover, propping the edge of the outer cover up with a piece of a branch. This allows the bees to enter from the side as well as the front, and is a good thing, as there were quite a lot of bees on the side of the hive body. With the outer cover propped open in this manner, and with a little luck, the bees will march right into the hive. And that is exactly what they did.

By the time the bee man made it here (about 4:30), the branch was empty of bees, and the box was full of them. In just a bit, I’ll head out to remove the branch prop and close the cover. Tomorrow, I hope they will still be in the box, and if they are still there by Saturday, I and my bro Chris Abbey​ will be able to move the box back to the hive stand, and I can stick a feeder on them. If all works as planned, this will be our first successful capture of a swarm!

All photos and video are courtesy of my mom, who has now also been instructed on the proper way to shoot video (landscape!) from her phone when the needs arises. Thanks, Mom!

This is our weather here. We’re northern enough in the state to get a taste of winter now and again – and by that, it’s highs in the 50s and lows sometimes dropping under freezing down to the teens – but southern enough overall that a lot of days during the winter months are more like spring. Yesterday, and now today (after a front blew through, raining and moving along), we are yet again experiencing a spring-like day: some clouds, but mostly sunny, mid-60s temp, and a fair amount of wind. It is a bit like Groundhog Day – appropriately enough, AMC has a little marathon of that movie going today – as we continue the cycle of getting through the months that the gardens are not fully in production, starting flats, pulling weeds, and in general, waiting for our real season to get underway.

One of the things about the ranch that remains constant is that there is always something to do, either inside or out. This past week, the goal was weeding the back garden area and chopping up the vetch (which, hilariously enough, the autocorrect on my phone wants to correct to “kvetch”) that has regrown, so it can be used both to mulch the transplants when the time comes and so it can compost in place to return itself to the soil for later years. Today: achievement unlocked! The two rows in the foreground need some topping off with fresh soil and manure, and that will be done well before the transplants are ready to go out.

Next target: the front gardens. In addition to the weeding chores, keeping the bees fed and happy during these winter days is also very important, as is keeping a good water supply for them. I do this with a birdbath near the beeyard, with some sticks in it to allow the bees to drink without drowning themselves. Even with this in place, we still have to fish them out of the pool from time to time, but once they dry off, they’re off again back to their hives. I found this one girl hanging out at the edge of the birdbath basin, drinking up.

Just another day at the ranch on a beautiful day that felt more like spring than winter.